I know I have been M.I.A. for the past few days but I’m around just really busy! I have been sticking to my June 2010 Pantry Challenge and it has been a lot of fun. This week was made slightly easier because the Hubz has been working off-site so all his lunches the past few days have been supplied- which means less food I have to make. I honestly haven’t been eating anything very interesting which has given me a lack of motivation to blog about it, on top of the fact that we are crazy busy with work, Hubz softball and oh yeah that whole packing thing because we move in 3 WEEKS! EEK! Anyways I just wanted to check in and let you know I’m still here! This weekend we will be out of town and I am interested in having a few guest bloggers so if you are a healthy living, vegan and/or eco-friendly blogger please e-mail me lindsay{at}cookingforaveganlover{dot}com with why you’d like to be a guest blogger and what your entry would be about.
Today has been a fairly lazy Sunday and it feels great! We woke up to rain and I knew that meant it would be the perfect day to relax on the couch with the fur baby and Hubz. It hasn’t been a totally lazy day though as I made kale and zucchini chips this morning which are still in the dehydrator getting all crispy and we did get ourselves out for a walk once the rain let up a bit.
I started my morning out with something I haven’t had in forever OATMEAL! I used to eat it daily but it’s been a few weeks since I have had myself a nice bowl of warm creamy oats with chia seeds, cinnamon, stevia, flax meal and a banana of course.
For lunch I cooked up some brown rice and topped it with leftover sliced Korean BBQ tempeh, 5 Spiced Garnet Yams and some soy glazed brussels sprouts all topped with sriracha of course!
Hubz and I are now off to watch a movie- Q: What are you up to today?
Hey Bloggies! It’s week 1 of the June Pantry Challenge and I am really excited to see what I can come up with this week. I hope that some of your out there are inspired to participate as well. This week I picked up a great number of items and stayed in budget. Here the beautiful selection of produce:
Organic Bananas $2.57
Organic Broccoli $2.13
Organic Vidalia Onion $1.27
Organic Baby Spinach $1.48
Organic Garnet Yam $1.85
Organic & Local Kale $2.50
Organic & Local Red Russian Kale $2.50
Organic & Local Yellow Zucchini $2.60
Organic & Local Cucumber $3
Total: $19.90- That means I have 10 cents to spare!
The first dish of the week was Korean BBQ Tempeh Sandwiches with Sriracha Vegan Mayo, 5 Spiced Garnet Yam Fries and Garlic-Soy Sauteed Kale.
Korean BBQ Tempeh:
2T Presidents Choice Korean BBQ Marinade (purchased in Canada)
2T low sodium Shoyu
80z Tempeh, quartered
Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the tempeh in a baking dish and pour the marinade over the tempeh. Bake for 20 minutes. In a pan heat a thin layer of oil and sautee the tempeh until it has browned a bit on each side. Serve on a bun with tomato, baby spinach and sriracha vegan mayo.
Sriracha Vegan Mayo
2 T vegan mayo
1t sriracha
Blend together and spread on a bun.
Five Spiced Yam Fries
1 Yam cut into fries
1/2T olive oil
1t 5 spice powder
1/2t wasabi spiced salt
Preheat oven to 400F. Toss the yam with oil and spices. Place on a sheet pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Garlic-Soy Kale
1/2 Bunch of Red Russian Kale, cut into bite sized pieces
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1/2T olive oil
1t low sodium shoyu
2t seaweed gomasio (Eden Organics)
In a large saute pan heat the garlic and oil over medium-high for 1 minute. Add the kale and mix in the shoyu and gomasio. Cook for 2-3 minutes until it is wilted.
As many of you know the Hubz and I are moving to a new apartment at the end of the month and since I don’t want to have to pack up everything in my cupboards I have decided that it is time for another pantry challenge. Basically I will only be allowed to buy $20 of fresh produce and spices/nutritional yeast for the remainder of the month. We have a CSA that is starting June 16th that comes every week so that will be on top of the $20 we are “allowed” to spend on fresh produce. Also additionally there is a strict NO EATING OUT rule for this month the only exception is for my daily coffee/tea at the coffee shop where I go to work in the mornings before work. I challenge YOU to try this pantry challenge as well. Please feel free to approach this challenge in anyway that you would like (i.e. if you have a family of 4 you may allow for $40 and/or you may allow yourself to purchase non-dairy milks, tofu, ect.).
Why should you participate?
To create new recipes
To save money
To limit the waste of food
BECAUSE IT’S FUN!
I’m excited to see how well I do, while still eating healthy. If you would like to participate as well please leave a comment telling me about your plans for this challenge. Also if you have a blog I encourage you to blog about this challenge and do weekly updates about it. I will be blogging each week detailing how much I spent that week and the meals that I made using the items I purchased, the items from our CSA and of course everything from our pantry/fridge/freezer.
Q: Have you ever tried a pantry challenge? How well did it go for you?
The Hubz and I just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary this past Monday May 31st and although we went away for the weekend to Portland ME we decided we should still do something special since we both had our anniversary off due to the Monday holiday. After spending the morning working on packing up our belongings the Hubz suggested that we pack a picnic, go for a drive and find somewhere to enjoy our picnic lunch. So I started on lunch while he finished picking up around the house and we headed out for a drive.
We headed towards Adamant VT because the Hubz has had this odd obsession with it here are a few facts about this village (via wikipedia):
There is no true boundary to define the village, and as such there is great debate as to what constitutes residence. This is, however, purely theoretical as there is no legal, governmental or commercial status associated with residence.
The village was originally known as Sodom from its inception in the mid-1800s as a granite quarry-town until 1905 when residents petitioned the state legislature for a name change.
The village center is the Adamant Co-op, a general store and post office located at the junction of Haggett, Quarry, Center and Sodom Pond Roads. Founded in 1935, it is the state’s oldest co-operative.
The thing that interested the Hubz so much was the co-operative so we took a drive through back roads to this small, very pretty village and visited the co-op. Adamant’s mascot is the black fly so it is fitting that there was a huge sculpture of a black fly outside of the co-op/general store/post office.
After our stop in Adamant we headed down a back road to ….well we had no idea where…but we finally met up with a main road and stopped in Morrisville where we enjoyed our picnic lunch.
For our picnic lunch we enjoyed falafel chips with hummus, orzo salad and raw kale salad.
Q: What is your favorite dish to bring on a picnic?
We had a pretty quiet night on Saturday, after our relaxing soak and dinner at Whole Foods we went back to our room where we enjoyed a few yummy vegan chocolates from Whole Foods. We split a Health Crunch and A Chocolate Salted Caramel Cup both of which were delicious.
We headed home on Sunday morning but not before stopping in at Whole Foods for an iced coffee and bagel with cream cheese.
After we ate our breakfast we spent a good 45 minutes roaming the aisles of the store picking up a number of goodies such as donut peaches, kale, apricots and coconut milk yogurt. Luckily I brought our cooler bag which I filled with ice from the hotel so that we could get some refrigerated items to bring home with us. Once we finally got on the road we decided to stop in York, ME at Stonewall Kitchen so that we could try all the hot sauce, jam and mustards that they have there, who doesn’t love free samples? The place was insanely busy and there were tons of rude people who kept pushing and shoving so the hubz and I made this a quick trip and got out of there before we were trampled.
From there we headed to Kittery ME to visit the outlets. We also picked up lunch for the road which we ate in Kittery after our disappointing trip to the outlets there. When did the Kittery outlets become so horrible?
After Kittery we decided to take the “scenic” way home and headed on Route 4 to Concord and to our delight we spotted Redhook Ale Brewery and decided to stop in and take a tour. When we arrived we had about an hour to wait before the next tour was to occur and since we were in no rush we decided to wait and get a sampler of their beer to try. We also had some chips and salsa because I only finished half my salad and I knew without a little food in my belly all that beer was going to have quiet the effect on me.
I finished all of the IPA and ESB but only took a few sips of the Slim Chance doesn’t exist it’s now the Blonde, the seasonal and the limited release (oatmeal stout). I also snacked on some chips but tried not to eat too many.
Finally the hour passed and it was time for our tour, which we almost didn’t stay for. We are glad we stayed though because for only $1 each we had a very informative tour and received a Redhook tasting glass as well as 4+ samples. It is one of the best tour deals I’ve ever seen.
We finished our trip in Concord NH where we stopped at Boloco to get something to eat for dinner. I was excited to see that Boloco has bowls instead of wraps now (I know my husband said it’s been like that for awhile), anyways I was pumped and decided to get a Goloco Bowl. Goloco is basically putting whatever you want in a bowl or wrap; for mine I had brown rice, organic tofu, fajita veggies, cucumber, corn salsa, tomatoes, scallions, balsamic and black bean hummus. The hubby got a wrap and we shared an unsweetened ice tea.
We had the best time in Portland – great city and I can’t wait to go back again.
After our “wild” night out on the town in Portland we decided that we needed to get some veggies in our systems, so we went to Whole Foods. This would start our day of eating entirely from Whole Foods. As soon as I saw the 2 different kale salads, I was in heaven.
I quickly devoured this entire bowl of goodies which consisted of 2 types of kale salad, vegan chicken salad, tuscan pasta salad, snow peas and a little bean salad. There was also a piece of sweet potato that I didn’t like, so after a nibble it went into hubby’s bowl.
The Hubby and I also shared a Vita CoCo Coconut Water.
Once we filled our bellies it was time to head out to do something active and since I had heard great things about the various trails around Portland we decided to try one out. We chose the Fore River Sanctuary Trail which lead us to f Jewell Falls, Portland ‘s only natural waterfall.
After our 2.5 mile walk we were hot and in need of some iced coffee and a shot of wheat grass from……WHOLE FOODS- this would be trip 2 of the day. While we were there we decided that we would head to Freeport to do a little outlet shopping and visit L.L. Bean so we picked up some lunch for our trip. For our lunch we each had a donut peach and shared vegan chicken salad, a multigrain roll and a salad of kale, red cabbage, pasta salad and a few other treats
Freeport was fun and we really enjoyed L.L. Bean which was filled with every camping item that we could ever want …and never need. Neil also enjoyed a nap in one of the tents.
After his nap at L.L. Bean it was time to head back to the hotel for a real nap in our bed before we headed out for the evening. This evening was a little, well more like a lot more low key than our first night in Portland. We made last minute reservations at Soakology a wonderful foot sanctuary and teahouse. I unfortunately couldn’t take any photos during our soak which was the most relaxing thing that either of us had done in a long time. I did a peppermint soak and the hubz did a Maine Woods which had spruce in it and he was in heaven.
While you sit in huge comfy chairs with your feel in giant bowls of warm water the soakologist provides you with a warm neck wrap. We sipped on some tea and relaxed while having our water warmed up ever 15 minutes for about an hour. We had the most relaxing time and after that we headed out for a walk and then dinner at ….take a guess…
Whole Foods!
I know what you are probably thinking, aren’t there any good vegan friendly restaurants in Portland? Yes, there are a number of great vegan friendly restaurants in Portland however for our trip we had one pricey night out and decided to keep things less expensive and enjoyed the convenience of Whole Foods. If you are looking for some good vegan options that aren’t Whole Foods I suggest: Green Elephant (vegetarian, but mostly vegan), Mesa Verde (Mexican, with some vegan options), Silly’s (pubish food, tons of vegan options), Wild Burrito (vegan-friendly), Bintliff’s American Cafe (vegan-friendly w/vegan brunch options), Aurora Provisions (vegan-friendly with local tempeh and tofu and vegan desserts); there are also a number of vegan-friendly Indian and Thai restaurants in the area as well.
